UTEP special events staff visits Nashville for 1D concert to take notes on production

EL PASO, Texas - UTEP and the Sun Bowl are getting ready to receive one of the biggest boy bands in the world – One Direction.

The band will perform Sept. 19 in El Paso – a little less than a month away, but UTEP officials are already getting ready for the massive concert.

"It is one of the biggest stadium tours that I've seen in a long, long time," said Jorge Vazquez, executive director for UTEP's Office of Special Events.

Over the weekend, Vazquez and some of his special events staff flew to watch One Direction in Nashville. View UTEP's photos of the production set up in Nashville at http://bit.ly/1pmvdeA

"The amount of people that they bring in is impressive," Vazquez told ABC-7. "We expect over 40,000 people in (the Sun Bowl) stadium and that is beyond the capacity that we initially intended. Ticket sales are over 40,000 right now, which is way more than N*Sync sold and more than Rolling Stones sold. So we've broken a new record."

Vazquez went to the Nashville concert at LP Stadium to take notes on how the show was run.

"It's the number one stadium tour in the world and although we've had many shows before I really wanted to have an understanding and a grasp of what this entails," Vazquez said.

Setting up for the concert is a massive undertaking.

"The loading in process, the stage, the rigging the electrical, the catering needs anything and everything that had to do with production," Vazquez said.

Another important factor for Vasquez is safety, especially knowing there will be so many young people attending the show.

"I wanted to see how they got people inside the stadium, what kind of security measures they had for the floor for anything and everything," he said.

Vazquez says UTEP's special events staff will spare no expense when it comes to security.

In Nashville, he noticed there were hundreds or even thousands of parents dropping off their kids.

"So what we're going to be doing is a parents lounge for those parents who don't want to go home like those parents from Juarez and their kid is the only one that got a ticket," Vazquez said. "We're going to have something so that they can wait comfortably for the kids."

Vazquez says they are working on every aspect to make the one direction concert the best show the Sun Bowl has ever seen.

"It's a very unique show," he said. "If you don't come to this and your friends tell you about it, you're going to regret it. Come see it for yourself."

UTEP will soon be putting out what they call a "survival guide" so fans will know what to expect.

Sept. 19, 2014 Concert Information

What: One Direction's Where We Are stadium tour. 5 Seconds of Summer is opening the show.

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19.

Where: Sun Bowl stadium.

Tickets: $19.50-$99.50, not including service charges. Tickets may be purchased at the University Ticket Center, Ticketmaster locations and online at http://bit.ly/1p1RHMN

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